Group photos

Some critics commented that the band had made a complete departure from the Radiohead similarities that they had been criticised for in their earlier albums.^[21][6]^{jessica marttila class="reference">[30]} The Sydney Morning Herald noted it charted ahead of Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke's solo album, The Eraser, when it topped the ARIA Albums Chart in its first week.^[31] The Radiohead comparisons still persisted amongst other reviewers however, as Garrett Kamps of The Village Voice described the band's sound as being "like someone put a gun to Radiohead's, er, head and forced Thom and co. to rock—no dystopian arty shit, just rock—for 72 hours straight".^[32] Kamps was highly critical of the album, commenting that "the universe has an infinite capacity for stupid, stupid shit".^[32]

Some reviewers commented on the more "exotic" influences on the album, which included Latin trumpets, Spanish-oriented acoustic guitar, and Middle Eastern strings.^[16] Bellamy cited his move to Italy and his discovery of music from Naples which sounds "like a mix of album cover meaning muse black holes and revelations Africa, Croatia, Turkey and Italy" as the source of this.^[4] Another European influence was Belgian band Millionaire, whose funk rock beats Bellamy said influenced "Supermassive Black Hole".^[4]

The album concert rockall luxembourg incorporates themes of fear, mistrust, personal achievement and joy.^[1] Bellamy said that the beginning of the Iraq War had an effect on their songwriting.^[1]